A Brief Interlude: 5 Unusual NPCs

With personal business being attended to the latter half of this week and most of this weekend, I'm breaking away from the current "series" of posts focused on a Dark Sun adventure of mine. In place of what was meant for this afternoon is a very short but very fun blurb, sparked by a simple idea:

"Simple DM tip: take monsters you usually use a simple combat threats and write a couple three up as NPCs with names, backstories, motivations, etc. Doesn't matter if they don't normally talk. Sylvia the Owlbear and Joey Greenslime may be the new hit characters of your game."
— from Jeff Rients on Twitter

I was instantly reminded of how funny it was when I gave a group of mushrooms names, goals, and families in a whimsical adventure that had the players journey through enchanted forests — shrunk all the way down to the size of tiny pixies and snails — and reunite with the tiny button child of one of the mushrooms they crushed underfoot right off the bat who became a great mushroom hero, renowned all throughout the grove. So, for today, I present a handful of not-so-normal NPCs that can make for interesting moments in, I think, any role-playing game out there.

Ursula, Sky-Terror. Giant Cardinal.
    Ursula's life was quite quaint. Flying with Ursula's companion, diving at insects, watching the bees buzz and swarm and the great warrior birds hunt, dominating the skies. The only exciting moments were visiting Ursula's window-friend for precious treats, those moments were too short for Ursula.
    Then, a few years ago, she was given an explosion of thought and drive and purpose by their window-friend — a young, very curious wizarding girl as it turns out — who also accidentally made Ursula grow to the be bigger than all but the biggest bears. A dream come true for Ursula, Queen of the Skies, Slayer of the Darkwood Spider-Fiends, and Guardian of The Island and the window-friend, Samantha, who gave even sweeter treats and wonderful head scratches every week in exchange for bird communication lessons.
    Last week Samantha became sick, Ursula hasn't seen Samantha since and is worried.

Sadiron. Two-Headed Couatl.
    They hate the color purple and wish to see it removed from the world, whenever they have the chance to destroy something purple they will try their best to do so. They love the god of the sun, sunrises, and the color orange more than anything else in the world and will never harm another creature who feels the same way. They are a long-standing member of the Dawnbreaker Alliance and always have an eye out for potential recruits and champions of the color orange.

Otis. Hell Hound.
    Otis is a muscular, large white-haired hell hound. He wears a stone collar with infernal script that reads "domgrethal odd marus."
    He cannot help himself from doing two things: howling at birds and rolling in tar pits. When their master is away and did not speak the command "domgrethal odd marus" before leaving, he will sleep to his hearts content and ignore all noise and commotion (as long as no birds or tar pits are in sight); otherwise, he will sit on guard until his master returns and pets him, fighting any creatures that come within 15 feet to the death who were not within 15 feet when his master spoke the command.

Regil. Camel.
    His last partner was an old warmongering type who worked as a ratcatcher for a year but quit after not being able to catch any after the first (sheer dumb luck). He always knows the best place to hide and the best place to sleep. He knows a poorly made trap when he sees one and will do his best to let the maker know so they don't end up like the ratcatcher. He likes cats of all kind and size but is very allergic to them and knows it. What he doesn't know is that he is deathly allergic to citrus.
    Regil knows the following spells, requiring no components to cast (can use 3/day, DC 11 saving throw): alarm, comprehend language, hold person, longstrider, power word stun.

Ban'thracc. Umber Hulk.
    "Feed the whelps, he says. Bite harder, he says. Clean my scales faster, he says. Move the hoard, he says. Tunnel DEEPER, he says! It's time for Ban'thracc to get what he wants, I says. Well, the Demon says Ban'thracc should get what he wants, but Ban'thracc agrees..."
    When Ban'thracc encounters strangers for the first time, he will run away in fear. If he encounters someone for the second time, he will try to communicate with them and convince them to kill the lord of the dungeon. If he is attacked or belittled by anyone other than the lord of the dungeon, Ban'thracc will become enraged and attack them.

It's always great to have simple concepts like this in your toolbag that, at the very least, add fun secrets to the game, but can also spark exciting, memorable moments for everyone at the table. Of course, a large part of the beauty of this (for me) is that any of these ideas can be used as templates and stuck onto just about any kind of creature: manticores, dragons, zombies, displacer beasts, perytons, giant beetles, brass minotaurs; even items like poor Della, or features of the environment like an oddly shaped rock formation or a pond turned into a sentient elemental. Hopefully someone out there was inspired as much as I was, thanks to @jrients for the idea.

And one last thing that I doubt will fit better anywhere else...

They were a tall, big, lovable mountain of a woman who knew everyone in the four villages: the smiths, cobblers, potters, the captain of the guard and his ten sons, the dockers and their children, every lumberjack and all of their mothers, the tailors (and their scowls and smirks when she would arrive in near threads), and all of the pie-makers and pork-smokers for a hundred miles or more. Along with her great grandmother's axe Jowena (named for the woman herself, rest her heart), she was the greatest woodcutter in six generations; since her great great great great grandfather Broxus the Bonesaw, that is.

    On one peculiar, misty afternoon in the spring, *chock* ... *chock* ... *chock* landing the final blows on the final tree of the season, she watched a lanky creatures climb out of the trunk of another oak nearby. When she turned to see the reactions of her companions, only mist was to be seen. She could hear their shouts but only muted. *pop* She poked in her ears to clean them, surely it would help. It didn't help. Looking back and forth, up the slight hill, around the tree, nothing. Then the creature was right in front of her. They were tall, as tall as her, but had long floppy ears like coattails and impossibly fine, black hair and dangerously sly, bright blue eyes. And soft hands, the softest hands, and nimble. The complete opposite of her hard, rough paws. One of those hands felt hers and the other lifted her axe. Everything seemed to stop in that moment, she remembers it perfectly, every day, the moment when their eyes looked straight on into hers. Their face turned into a hideous scowl.

    Everything after that is a series of blurs. They took the axe, at least she thinks, swung at her and they fought, and she remembers hearing someone else shouting in the thick mist. Then all of a sudden it was over. The mist cleared and she looked up from the ground next to the old oak, "only a minute more and it would have fallen" she remembers thinking. She saw the edge of Jowena glinting in the sun, the mist had cleared. She tried to get up but couldn't move her arms, and her feet were stuck in the ground.

    In time, she would watch that old oak finally be felled by her younger cousin, now swinging her great grandmother's axe with the aim of a blind badger, but it was good enough. Other trees would fall, after what seemed like a lifetime there were only a few small trees left in the grove. It was mostly just her, the warm dirt, the cool grass, the beetles and birds, and a field of yellow and white flowers. And one beautiful blue flower. It reminded her of that man. *chock* That sickening sensation. A shallow sucker punch, but it burned deeper than any other fist blow or needle prick or broken bottle slice she had ever felt. The burning grew then became numb.

    The trip there is lost from her mind along with most of her stay in the old woodmaker's shop. She wishes she could forget that entire moment in her life. Being stripped and butchered, feeling parts of herself get ripped away and cut down, then what was left of her getting pinned back together. After these many lifetimes it was still too vivid.

    — The tale of Della Broxinsdottir, the Enchanted Bookshelf

Brash Brutes: Aarakocra

In my previous post I talked about aarakocra I tossed into a short and sweet Dark Sun adventure. I figured I should write a post dedicated entirely to those lovable (in that Gremlin or Skeksis sort of way) screeching death birds.

Aarakocra: Forgotten Realms vs Dark Sun

"Bird-men," "eagle-folk," "aarakocra," in D&D (and numerous RPG settings, especially the Forgotten Realms) they're the humanoid creatures with two long legs with talons, two arms with opposable thumbs and needle-like nails, two huge feathered wings, and the head of eagle with keen eyes and a strong beak; they fly high above mountainous areas wielding their finely crafted spears, serving as protectors for their tribes and guides for friendly travelers. In RPGs, the birdfolk were introduced in the early 80s in the AD&D Fiend Folio, coming after a long line of characters like Hawkman and Hawkgirl from the 40s, the winged viking Prince Vultan from the slightly earlier Flash Gordon — Brian Blessed's character in the 80s Flash Gordon movie was the first birdman I remember seeing outside of mythology books — and millennia after the Egyptian deities Horus and Ra (which are also the inspiration for Hawkman, more or less from what I understand). It's the monstrous eagle-like aarakocra that most D&D and Pathfinder players think of when they imagine hawk-men and birdfolk nowadays, being part of the game for so long now, inspiring modern players in much the same way majestic, real-world eagles and hawks and all manner of mythological griffons do while being able to collaborate and communicate as well as they can fly and rip and tear, or better.

The "aven" of Magic: the Gathering offer plenty of other examples as well, no doubt inspired by D&D's archetypal eagle, hawk, or parrot aarakocra for many of their armored eagle warriors, but showcasing a wide variety of unique versions from owl wizards and crow shaman to crane monks and falcon clerics to hoopoe and buzzard soldiers, peacock warriors (not on theme for this post, but go see Battlebond's "Soaring Show-Off" art by Sidharth Chaturvedi), and vulture zombie or possessed aven horror. Some mutant aven even resemble hook horrors (see Scourge's "Coast Watcher" and "Aven Farseer" art by Luca Zontini and the rest of her portfolio). While I like a lot of things about the classic bird-people, it's the zombie vultures, owl wizards, flying hooked horrors, and crow shaman that really grab me when I play Magic, create a D&D character or brainstorm new monsters and adventures to plug them into or shape around, and when I sit down to sketch or paint.

When I'm thinking about darker, grim, brutal settings like Dark Sun, creatures twisted by the magnificently horrifying Phyrexians are another avenue I'm pulled to. The "pseudo-Giger-esque" (if that's a term) and Dark-Crytal-invoking, haunting art of Adrian Smith (nightmarish "Tine Shrike"), Mark Zug, Daarken, Nils Hamm, Dave Allsop, Greg Staples, Chippy, Steve Argyle, Stephan Martinière, Tomasz Jedruszek ("Carrion Screecher" for this discussion), Kev Walker, [insert a dozen more artists here], the duo of Jana Schirmer and Johannes Voss (both of whom are great on their own, I love their collaborations most), and finally [not finally] darker pieces by Terese Nielsen ("Dismember" and "Despise", for two) amplify my brainstorming tenfold. Another artist I must mention before moving on [to more artists] is Cos Koniotis. I don't know much about them outside the fact that they have done a few pieces for Magic; their art style, their sketches and digital art are awesome, it fits the mood of Dark Sun so well to me. They don't seem to have all of their work in any one place, but they do have a DeviantArt and can be looked up on Gatherer (Wizards of the Coast's searchable archive of every MtG card) and the internet in general, of course.

The art that originally shaped the world of Dark Sun — from its time as "War World" or whatever it was called before its slight shift and polishing — was that of Tom Baxa and Brom, neither of whom, I assume, need more of an introduction than their names. I've known Brom's art since I was a kid, I loved it (even still) more than the work of other famously known artists like Frank Frazetta, pouring over it as much as I would William Adolphe Bouguereau (which is a lot, to say the least). His "Morgan le Fay" on the cover of The Art of Brom was one of the first, then "Red Wing" and "Black Wing," Jack on the cover of The Plucker, "Peter" and "Sekeu" from The Child Thief, the covers for the War of the Spider Queen series. I loved the covers for Dark Sun's Freedom and Slave Tribes (the only ones I was familiar with for a while) and the old computer games as well, although somehow I wouldn't connect the dots and learn that they were pieces for D&D until high school when I started playing a lot of chiptunes from old games and finally read more about the setting. Around that time I found more of Tom Baxa's contributions to the world but wouldn't become familiar with him until some years later (just a year or so before now), and it helped strengthen my idea of what Dark Sun is, what the people in it are like, what the creatures are, how the world should feel. A lot of what made it it I liked in the same way I do the different parts of Star Wars (mostly all of them... mostly).

And so, to make something long-winded brief, an aarakocra in Dark Sun shouldn't make you feel the same way that seeing a soaring griffon feels, watching it leap off a rock high above you, far beyond your feathered pathfinder coming to rest after circling the treetops. It should make your heart beat a little faster by striking up a fear of death inside you, when you see it perched on a mountainside you should find beauty in its savagery and wickedness, its jagged beak and singed skin and feathers. Like a battered pigeon missing half a wing and a foot and has a popped balloon string caught around its neck and a bobby pin through its face, that by all means should have died weeks ago when it slammed into the window in the second floor of the pizza shop and fell smack onto the bike rack hump but is still existing in the dingy neighborhood with every other broken thing.

Twisted by the Sun Above the Burning Sands

Now, when I first looked through my growing list of monsters I'd want to use for wasteland adventures, the aarakocra was at the top. I just liked the idea of taking the classic monster and dropping it into a harsh wasteland and fiddling with it, adapting it to that environment. I thought about how to start doing that and figured that instead of it being an eagle, it's a vulture. Obvious, simple, fantastic. Flipping through the pages of 4e's Dark Sun Creature Catalog I had borrowed from a friend revealed that most of that work had been done, however, and so what was obvious to me before was instantly set in stone. It still has a beak and wings, talons, a spear, but instead of being pristine or armored they have ragged feathers, crooked beaks, they wear scraps if anything. Instead of tending towards doing well in the world and assisting those in need, they tend to be aggressive, selfish scavengers and prey on the weak whenever possible.

My first notes for them:

Aarakocra: Sparsely-feathered, pink- and red-skinned, scrawny vulture-like species and a "fluffier" grey, black and white-feathered and pink-skinned, pudgey condor-like species. Their shrieks echo through the badlands, desert plains and canyons they make their roosts in.
Medium humanoid, chaotic neutral, CR 1/2-1 (100-200 XP)

• Savage, tribal. There are many different tribes scattered around the world. Despite being extremely similar, they all fiercely defend their territory from other tribes as well as any trespassers. They are quick to rob, extort, kidnap, or kill and eat any who wander close unprotected.
• Predators, scavengers. While most would prefer to let other creatures or nature do the fighting and scavenge afterward, they are cunning and brave warriors themselves. They also make great scouts and are commonly employed (or enslaved) as such.

• Spiritual. They venerate the sun, sky, and the wind as primal entities, some tribes name and worship them as deities. Shaman, leaders of the tribe also known as windcallers, use prayers and rituals to summon gusts of wind, dust storms, or even call spirits and elemental creatures to aid them in battle and mundane tasks.
      Smaller, secluded tribes may consist of as few as four warriors, larger tribes may number anywhere from a dozen to a hundred and have various levels and types of classes within the tribe.
• Few Allies. Among their very limited allies are the occasional kenku and wealthy merchant house, the former more often making treaties rather than partnership. Other allies may include spirits, elementals, or other flying creatures.
• Enemies to Slavers. Slavers steal their eggs to hatch and raise, then enslave themselves or sell to merchant houses. Tribes who have caught slavers or discover merchant houses with aarakocra slaves harass them, making war for generations. Their only other constant and universal enemy are other tribes.

Good at: Flying and fleeing, bravery, reflexes (DEX), scouting and ambushing (vision), scavenging (equipment, food, etc.).
Bad at: Communication (with others, CHA), stealth (leave feathers around, shriek to communicate with themselves or intimidate, etc.), 1-on-1 combat.
Stats: +STR, ++DEX, -INT/CHA. (+4 total, -2 total?)
Equipment: Spears, longspears, anything scavenged they can use, no (or little) armor.
    Other weapons: Wings, beaks, talons, razor feathers, wind.
Can dive to gain bonus to their attack or damage or can swoop down to "grapple" and fly away with a medium-sized creature (two or more can pick up larger/heavier creatures).

Going through canyon: large brown and red feathers on the ground, possibly hear "caw" or "warble" echo in the distance. Roll Nature/Survival, low: large bird (hawk or vulture); high: distinguish the call and feathers as aarakocra.
Other: merchant carcass on a high ledge in the cliff.

After a few minutes thumbing through a few AD&D, 4e, and 5e books, a few more minutes scribbling down ideas, I was left with plenty to use (more than I needed, for sure).

But I was still missing actual rules. A stat block or note card with attacks and AC, at the very least. The 4e books had multiple versions with attacks and abilities and stats, but other than the art and some descriptions everything was entirely alien to me. I never played that edition and don't even know someone who did (my friends who have 4e books essentially tear material out of them and plug it into their Pathfinder campaign). I know that version went to level 30 instead of 20 but after "mathing" through the stats it didn't feel right. So, instead of trying to "convert" those monsters to 5e rules, I started with the aarakocra in 5e's Monster Manual. Some notable things about the process were that I wanted them to really have a place in the world outside of being angry meat to throw at a party (the big blurb above was basically finished) but part of me also really wanted to be able to use them as angry meat to throw at a party. And make them challenging at a wide range of levels; simple in small numbers, flexible enough to work in large numbers or with minor tweaks and be dangerous for higher levels PCs. On the lower end of things and for new players, I wanted the first encounter with them to be pretty straight forward rules-wise (to use as a DM) but pretty dangerous. Later on, hopefully they would either meet a larger group and vividly remember their first proverbial handshake with the monster and its rules or all that fluff would be working its way into the game.

I whipped up a handful of stat blocks, one for the standard warriors, one for minions, and a few that were more specialized, higher level, or twisted in some way (in the croaking undead horror sort of way, to be specific). I gave a rough telling of the adventure I put them in in the previous post (one warrior and two minions that I tweaked), afterwards I ended up with the following rules:

Aarakocra Warrior
Medium humanoid, chaotic neutral
AC 13, HP 20 (4d8 + 2), Bloodied 12, Speed 25 ft, Fly 40 ft
STR 12 (+1), DEX 17 (+3), CON 10 (+0), INT 10 (+0), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 7 (-2)
Skills: Perception +4
Senses: Passive Perception 14
Languages: Common
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Abilities
Keen Sight and Smell. The aarakocra has advantage on WIS (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.
Pack Tactics. The aarakocra has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the aarakocra's allies is within 5 ft of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.
Sly Takeoff. (Entire turn.) Disengage then fly 30 ft. If the aarakocra is being Grappled, they instead attempt to escape with advantage, then fly 30 ft if successful (they do not take the Disengage action and therefore may provoke attacks of opportunity).
Triggered Abilities
Bloodied, 12 HP. Disable Flyby Attack.
Death Shriek, on death. The aarakocra lets out a long, piercing shriek with its last breath, alerting other nearby aarakocra, allies, or predators.
Actions
Flyby Attack. The aarakocra flies 10 ft and uses its spear attack at any point during the movement. (This attack may provoke attacks of opportunity.)
Spear. +7 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 12 (2d8 + 3) piercing damage.
Beak. (Use if Grappled.) +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 6 (1d6 + 3) piercing damage.
Talons. (Use if Disarmed.) +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage.

Aarakocra Minion
CR 1/4 (50 XP)
HP 1 (destroyed if hit by any attack), [reduced stats to STR 10 (+0), DEX 13 (+1)]
No Skills or Senses, use leader's during encounter (Warrior or Windcaller, if any).
Loses Sly Takeoff.
Retains Flyby Attack, Spear attack damage reduced to 5 (1d8 + 1).

The warrior has a ton of stuff for a simple, low-level encounter at first glance, but I didn't use most of its abilities and only used its flyby and spear attacks; I kept but didn't use Pack Tactics since it was alone but was needed for the minions later on, its Death Shriek was more for flavor and was part of the canyon area and encounter notes instead of being attached to itself (it might be better the other way, I'm not sure). For the minion, I only needed the 1 HP and its weaker attack on the back of the warrior's note card, referring to the front for anything else not listed; they would also have the Death Shriek, but again in my adventure it was included with the encounter notes and wasn't relevant.

For other notes, I had scribbled up a mutated inix in the area that's attracted to dead and dying mammals like the birdfolk and adventurers, the party would meet it if time allowed. After the adventure and not really using the it, I whipped up two small tables: Wandering Scavengers, Daytime & Nighttime. If something died and could be eaten or heard or smelled by something, I would roll on one of those. I plugged the inix into the nighttime table with a 30% chance to appear, adding some odd rot-eating beetles at 30% (little critters that would leave 1d8 larvae by morning for each size the dead thing was above small), another aarakocra warrior at 20%, and left the rest open (20% nothing).

And that's pretty much that. Eventually I'll flesh out my stats for the "Zombie" and "Windcaller" and talk about those at some point. For now I'd say that's good enough for me.

Continued in Part 2

A Perfect Start

When everything crashes in a chaotic disaster all at the same time, it is always somehow brilliantly perfect. That all the things that could wrong would go wrong, not just in the same month or the same week, but the same day and same hour as if on cue. The last few days for me turned into one of those strangely brilliantly executed strings of bad breaks. The car died, the last pair of contacts got lost, the insurance wasn't accepted, the power went out, the milk went sour, the juice got spilled, the maintenance crew didn't show up which wouldn't be a surprise but how they were schedule for just this week was hilarious, the insomnia struck hard which also wouldn't be unusual if it weren't for it happening the night before the upstairs neighbors decided to do construction instead of the same day they did construction. Brilliant. Magical, even.

While that was happening, I got in mind a nice transition to talking about how I was introduced to Dark Sun, and thought that I wanted to talk about the art, the ideas behind Dark Sun, then the first adventure I had. But now I just want to get right to talking about it.

DS1 Freedom

"Sunrise on the horizon over a sand dune. Time-lapse forward to approximately 9 a.m., camera swivels with the sun then pans out to a bright desert, zooms slightly on white sand surface dotted with dead critters and few stray cricket-like limbs. Camera leaps over another dune, reveal small town of busy people getting to work and some getting back from their first leg of work earlier in the day, unloading beasties, talking to an elder, one talking to a child assisting. Camera crawl through the city to the party."

That was my first taste of Dark Sun. It isn't how the City of Tyr and adventure is described as written in the book, but it's how I was introduced. I liked that first bite. My second bite was dawdling around town "adventuring." That is, stumbling into highly offendable characters or having ridiculously overpowering groups of slavers thrown in front of the party until the each of the PCs was in jail or knocked unconscious, transported to slave pens somewhere in the desert, processed like criminals (stripped, shaved, etc.) and assigned to some form of slave labor or another. I disliked the second bite enough to step away from the game. Years later, I started reading the book and it immediately solidified my feelings on it:

"The purpose of the Part One encounters is to capture the player characters: the later stages of Freedom take place in the slave pens of Tyr, and thus the players must be captures in Part One. . . . Only after all the PCs are slaves / can the adventure continue."
— from DS1 Freedom (1991) by David "Zeb" Cook, DM's Book introduction

The first part of the adventure — which could last hours — is designed to throw players into various angry, easily-offended, aggressive groups of NPCs, one of which is apparently a segregated area for elves. If they don't end up jailed or enslaved after a while, a large group of militant zealots tear through the city (wherever the PCs are, of course) to arrest the PCs for whatever offense they can come up with, or they end up in a tavern that happens to be owned by someone working with zealots and slavers and who will literally drug the characters and abduct them. I found out I didn't play through Freedom exactly as written, but it was pretty close, and I could hardly believe what a miserable excuse for a fun adventure the first part was, let alone that wasn't just one official product for D&D but the very first official adventure for the new Dark Sun setting.

Skimming through the books made me want to write an introductory adventure for the world Dark Sun which, by now, I had become fairly fascinated in. Obviously I hated the adventure itself and there was a lot I wanted to change. Having the primary goal of the DM for the first hour (give or take) be to enslave the PCs was absurd; the main goal of everyone should be to have fun. I didn't want any of the racist, sexist, hate-mongering zealots and slavers to come anywhere close to an intro game, I didn't want to chain the players in any way. For me, the inciting incident should be exciting, dramatic, and set a wide and open, free stage. The world is full of brutality, but I think most players would rather find danger through exploring the world as opposed to whatever Freedom tried to do. Instead of immediately treating them like criminals for no reason other than "well the people in charge here are terrible," I would want them to experience the world and eventually face the consequences of their actions, for better or worse, in a more natural and deeper way.

Putting it all Together

So, if I were the writer or director for this shindig, what would I change? Well, I would want it to start the same way, but I wouldn't want the adventure to start the same way. I love the opening crawl. I love the sunrise. The dead crickets dotting the sand, the group of scavengers already getting back to town with a big haul. But then, BANG! Or maybe not a bang, maybe a rumbling, a quaking...

We see the dark-skinned father, boulder-y arms and chest and neck with a frayed and faded black bandana on his head, the kid runs over. Instead of the father unloading and handing off to the kid, the father tends to one thing and the kid goes around to the back of the wagon, camera swerves around to follow, kid starts trying to unload something from the bottom of the stack. *bump* Cue earthquake, stack falls onto the kid in a pile. *bu-dump* Workers and father look around the sea of silt. *shuh-fump* Cut to party, what are they doing? They do it for a minute. *rumbling* Kid pokes head out of the pile. *rattling, groaning earth* The "oh shit" realization hits the father and someone in the party. "Burrowers!" (Massive tunneling creatures of some form or another, centipedes or worms, pick your poison.) Everyone goes into desperation mode, scatters, the "lookouts" or somebody figures out that they're burrowing right up the center of town which obviously happens to be right where the party is. Party needs to move asap or die. Wide shot of everyone scrambling around the caravan. BOOM! A massive-tunneling-creature-of-some-form-or-another erupts a "block" or so behind the scramblers in a spray of sand and earth and burst of rock and assorted trash (literal blockbuster). The party either moved asap or take an undodgeable ninety die twenty plus one hundred mega-crushing damage and, if that weren't enough, rocks and debris fall from the burrower, land on anyone who dawdled dealing another undodgeable ten die twenty or so damage. Survivors come to a stop, watch another monstrosity erupt from the earth in the distance, smaller quakes jostle their feet. Cut to party members (if they survived) standing next to the kid who gives a *exhale, inhale, exhale* "oh..." *short gasping breath* "shit." The burrowers whorl away into the distance and back underground. *distant rumbling*

Inciting incident complete. The protagonist's (party's) steady-state world is completely destroyed. Adventure begins right away.

I slapped a few ideas together, nothing special but I felt it would work, and set to testing it out along with some monsters I was fiddling with (or converting/adapting to 5e and/or Dark Sun). The players were acquaintances, mostly unfamiliar with Dark Sun, and the party was made up of a fighter, ranger, warlock, and rogue (all 1st-level, effectively straight out of the Basic Rules). We got through the opening sequence, and the group unanimously decided to head into the desert in search of food and supplies and, perhaps, leave the destroyed town for good and settle in the nearby canyons.

A quick tangent on two special rules we used:

• Unconsciousness. When a PC's health reaches 0, they fall unconscious as described in the 5e Basic Rules. Additionally, they roll on a table to determine short- or long-term effects based on hit location for physical attacks (broken rib, broken ankle, concussion, etc.) or based on damage type (burn scars, temporary paralysis, etc.).
• Healing. Some PCs started with bandages (or a type of medicine/healer's kit) that give a bonus when using Hit Dice to recover HP after resting. Fresh bandages give a full bonus (+3), used/worn bandages give half (rounded down to +1), soiled or otherwise contaminated bandages have other effects (25% chance for infection), and medicated bandages either give greater bonuses (+4, +2 on the second day, +1 on the third) or have other effects. Bandages and Medicine checks can be used to stop unconscious PCs from dying as expected.

I looked through my notes, rolled a six-sided die, and... "Marching under the sun away from the ruins with purpose, you reach the top of the wall of sand and spot the mouth of the canyon, happily sooner than you expected. Five kestrekel (small horn-billed, vulture-like scavenger birds) flutter off of a dead tree..." They continue, making mental notes to keep an eye out for the birds if they don't find a better, larger target. Soon, (after some Survival and Perception checks) "a guttural growling cuts through the quiet sounds of shuffling feet and the breeze scattering coarse sand across the ground..."

A short, mangy humanoid creature (hobgoblin stand-in) mounted on a large, mangy hyena (a worg) leaps out from behind another wall of sand. Fighting ensues. It was meant to be a "Hard" difficulty encounter for the party and it was. The fighter fell unconscious, stabilizing back to 1 HP with some bandaging. More marching, crunching over dead insects (one juicy-ish one was eaten, +1 HP to the fighter), a short break to eat as they make it to the mouth of the canyon. Now was the perfect time to test one of the monsters I tinkered with. Another round of Perception checks, more kestrekel following after the fight flee, and "a bloodcurdling *scraaaw* echoes out of the rocks..."

An aarakocra warrior — a savage, tribal vulture-folk with a hard beak and fierce-looking spear in its sharp talons — dives onto the party, ambushing them with a flyby attack. The fighter falls again, he bleeds out and dies, the rest of the group manage to kill the aarakocra in two rounds right as it flies past and are pelted with a loud shriek as it dies. Another Hard combat encounter, probably too hard. They take a moment to gather themselves (a Short Rest), take what they can off their fallen ally and enemy, and march on. They spot a creature scaling up the canyon cliff but leave them alone, then make it further into the canyon with Survival checks. Still alert from the last fight, they see two more of the same creatures flying at them. Two aarakocra minions (one hit to kill) knockout the rogue in the first round despite the anticipation, the warlock falls in the next round, but all three survive. A fair, short encounter (Normal difficulty) that seemed just right.

One last break (Long Rest), one more struggle through the natural hazards in the canyon and interaction with a battered gnoll, and the day ends. The surviving party members were rewarded with 500 combat XP (200 x 2 [Hard] + 100 x 1) and reach level 2. It ended up being a very simple but fun couple of hours that also gave me a lot of useful information. I made notes to adjust the aarakocra warrior all around, tweak the minions' stats slightly and adjust the CR levels. But, while the day was coming to an end, the adventuring day wasn't over as the sun sets and night reaches the canyon. More predators crawl into the scene: large, poisonous, and hungry lizards lured by the scent of dead aarakocra and other warm-blooded creatures...

That would be all for us for the day, though. The brief nighttime scene was a nice cliffhanger, everyone left after a while, and I started brainstorming and tweaking monsters over a few slices of leftover pepperoni and ham pizza and Flanders Red Ale. I was really happy with it so far and had barely scratched the surface of what I had planned. There were a few notable things I got in mind, one being Jeremy Crawford (Lead Rules Designer for D&D) in some video with D&D Beyond talking about how to set examples of how the world works through the game's design and thinking about what the rules say about the game.

In this adventure, a small group of 1st-level characters overcame an aarakocra attack and reached level 2. Would every wanderer and merchant and caravan leader then have to be around level 2 or 3? Are aarakocra this strong and behave that way because their prey and other predators are so strong? Should the party have more access to medicine in nooks and crannies in the canyon, or should they get better tools (or be given better armor), be more cautious when traveling in open areas, or find someone skilled at healing and have them join the party? And what about the burrowing monstrosities that started this whole thing; how frequently do they demolish small settlements or breach the walls of greater cities?

That experience, as simply as it was retold here, had every basic thing I love about Dungeons & Dragons in it. And it probably wouldn't have happened without DS1 Freedom and the terrible experience I had playing it

Find the birdfolk in Brash Brutes: Aarakocra
Continued in part 2: Digging Deeper

A New Chapter

My first introduction to D&D and tabletop role-playing games in my small, somewhat conservative town was through other media based on or heavily inspired by the games, or media that inspired the game's creators. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, books about the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages and Merlin and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Rennaissance artists, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, books about Drizzt Do'Urden, Gauntlet arcade machines, Final Fantasy games and their monsters, Magic: the Gathering and its art, and of course picking up and pouring over boxes for Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale but never getting to play since my family didn't have a computer to play them on. Then, sometime around the first grade, I (and my dad) saved up enough money to buy a PlayStation 2 and eventually Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy X, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance followed by a pile of other RPGs and strategy guides and a used copy of the D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook, hoping to learn the rules and play through The Sunless Citadel with my small group of friends and maybe even adventures in Middle-earth.

'D&D was a huge inspiration for me growing up' would be a huge understatement. It gave me countless hours of entertainment, helped my very reserved younger and older selves connect with future friends, inspired me to draw hordes of dragons and a trove of fantastical suits of armor and weapons and arcane artifacts, and spurned me to write dozens of stories on rainy days. As an adult, I have mostly engaged with D&D through watching recorded play sessions (the original RollPlay being the first campaign I watched and immediately loved), absorbing the work of other artists, and reading or listening to others talk about the game's rules and designs as opposed to reading the books cover-to-cover, making art and maps and adventures, and playing the game myself.

However, more recently I made my way back to absorbing little content from others and creating content myself, mostly in the form of extensive house rules, monster and map designs, short adventures, and writing short- and long-form articles about the game as a ghost writer for an obscure website tucked away in some dusty corner of the internet. Now, that obscure website and business — as far as I can see — is completely gone and, with it, all of that probably-not-good-enough-that-I-should-fret-over-it work I did for a few bucks.

With that and no other work to occupy myself with, I had to find and carve out a new place for me to retread the ideas and inspirations behind those lost articles as well as dig up and work on a smorgasbord of unrealized ideas for grand adventures, epic fantasy series, and campaign settings from my across my entire life, and share with, hopefully, somebody who finds some value in it.

Ichortide is a blog centered on reestablishing lost articles and musings about Dungeons & Dragons and, predominantly, the worlds of Dark Sun and the Forgotten Realms, as well as embarking on new explorations within those and other worlds.

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